Shelf Awareness for Thursday, March 8, 2018

Quotation of the Day

'Women, the Future of Bookselling'

"Women are the future of bookselling. Men have a philosophy of don't fix it if it's not broken. There's never a moment as a woman that you're not stopping to think about how you can innovate and make something better."

B&N's Temporary Maui Location Opening Soon

B&N in Lahaina

In Hawaii, Barnes & Noble will open its new temporary location March 12 in Kahului at Maui Marketplace while it continues to search for a permanent location on Maui. Last fall, the company's announcement it would close the Lahaina Gateway Center store prompted a public outcry. B&N subsequently negotiated a lease extension and eventually found the temporary space.

Jim Lampassi, B&N v-p, real estate development, said, "The outpouring of support from the community as we tirelessly worked to find a new store in the area was heartwarming, and we can't wait to continue to serve our loyal customers on the island."

He also thanked broker Roger Lyons of CBRE in Honolulu for "helping us to identify an appropriate short-term lease until we find a more permanent location, and Petco, the previous occupant of the space who we are subleasing it from. We would also like to thank the Festival Companies, our landlord in Lahaina, for granting us more time to find a relocation space."

Bernie Sanders to Speak at BookExpo

Bernie Sanders

BookExpo will host "An Evening with Senator Bernie Sanders" on the main stage at the Javits Center in New York City on Thursday, May 31, 6:15-7:15 p.m. The ticketed event will be available only to BookExpo attendees.

Sanders will discuss his upcoming book, Where We Go from Here (St. Martin's Press), which will be published immediately after the midterm elections in November. In it, he describes his opposition to Trump since the 2016 election, his efforts to bolster the progressive movement and his plans for how the U.S. can move forward as a nation.

A second-term Senator who, of course, ran for president in 2016, Sanders earlier was Vermont's representative in the House of Representatives for 16 years and was mayor of Burlington, Vt., for eight years. His last adult book was 2016's Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. In 2017, he published the Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution, aimed at teens and young readers.

Obituary Note: Lucie Brock-Broido

Poet Lucie Brock-Broido died March 6. She was 61. Her editor at Knopf, Deborah Garrison, said: "Lucie was a defining presence on the Knopf list. Her poetry, while stunningly various in its forms and subjects, had its signature: injustices unmasked in beautifully embroidered, fanciful language that continually fascinated her readers and was hugely influential with students of poetry over several decades.

"Lucie was nominated for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was the winner of honors including the Witter Bynner prize for poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. No one was more dedicated to the art of poetry, students of poetry, and the people she cared about than Lucie. She will be deeply missed."

Brock-Broido's poetry collections include Stay, Illusion (2013), a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award; Trouble in Mind (2004); The Master Letters (1995); and A Hunger (1988).

KidLit Marches for Kids' Lives

After the fatal shooting of 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., authors Jenny Han and Raina Telgemeier each felt the need to do something. A young adult author, Han feels that she has a "unique connection" with teens and children. Telgemeier, who writes primarily for middle-grade readers, echoes this sentiment, saying, "as authors, we serve kids and visit schools constantly. We feel like we're a part of a community that kids really pay attention to and maybe even aspire to be a part of." As the days passed and the student survivors first spoke out about gun violence then planned their March 24 March for Our Lives, Telgemeier found herself "inspired.... We see [the teen activists] as the future and we're really proud of them." Han put out a call to action on her Twitter page, asking the kidlit community, in "what ways can we support this movement?" Telgemeier, a friend of Han "via social media and the author circuit," was one of the first people to respond.

Telgemeier, who lives in the Bay Area, and Han, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., moved the conversation into their private messages. It was extremely important to both authors that whatever they did for the March for Our Lives, it buoy the teens' movement--they didn't want to outshine the young activists or change the message. As Telgemeier phrased it, they wanted to "take what [the students were] doing and give them a fist bump." "It's not about us as authors," Han added, "it's about the kids and making them feel like we have their backs." After much discussion, planning and hearing the input of other authors (including Brendan Kiely, Veronica Roth, Christopher Healy and Alexander London), they decided that they didn't "want to create anything separate" from the teens but instead wanted to march with them to help grow their numbers and show support. Han wanted to keep "the kids... at the helm."

Han and Telgemeier reached out to Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety to figure out their next steps. Everytown, which is coordinating all the sister marches for the 3/24 March for Our Lives, connected Telgemeier and Han with their Author Council, a group founded last spring as an extension of their Creative Council. The Everytown Author Council stepped in to help facilitate and is planning on helping the authors prepare an auction to raise funds. Telgemeier then started working on a symbol for the movement and, with the help of Siobhan Vivian's husband, Nick Caruso, the KidLit Marches for Kids graphic was created. Han feels this graphic will be "really cool" because "people in the [kidlit] community from all over the country [will] march with the same banner... the kids [will] be able to look behind them and see a wall of support of adults who care about them and want to see them safe." This graphic can be downloaded and printed by anyone interested in joining the movement to, as Telgemeier stated, "support young adults in the midst of a national tragedy. We want to... encourage them to help change the world."

Han also hopes that focusing their movement on the kidlit community might bring out people who haven't engaged in social activism before. "Our focus," she said, "is [on] everyone who is a part of this community, not just authors and illustrators--everyone who is a part of this community who wants to show up for the kids." It's a way of "extending our hand to the next generation," Telgemeier said, because "their age doesn't mean they can't start thinking about issues and what matters to them." When asked if there is a hope for more action after this march, both authors expressed how important it is to each of them that the spotlight remain firmly on the teens. Telgemeier and Han are acting "as point people," said Telgemeier, "using the hashtag and trying to get people to the marches."

Notes

Image of the Day: PNBA Honors Tides

Jonathan White receives his 2018 PNBA Book Award for Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean (Trinity University Press) from Jenny Pederson of Darvill's Bookstore, Orcas Island, Wash. See the other PNBA winners here.

PRHPS to Sell and Distribute Hay House

Beginning in August, Penguin Random House Publisher Services will sell and distribute Hay House's entire frontlist and backlist in the U.S. and Canada across all sales channels. Hay House previously self-distributed its titles in North America.

Hay House, which focuses on books and card decks in self-help, New Age, personal growth and health, has published such international bestsellers as You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer, Medical Medium Thyroid Health by Anthony William and The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein.

"Hay House was started 31 years ago by Louise Hay, and has grown into an industry leader in the mind, body, and spirit area of publishing," Reid Tracy, CEO of Hay House, commented. "We have been working with Penguin Random House in the U.K., Australia, and India for many years, and we look forward to expanding that relationship to North America."

Jeff Abraham, president of Penguin Random House Publisher Services, added: "This partnership represents a tremendous opportunity to join and advance Hay House's illustrious history of publishing books that transform people's lives with Penguin Random House Publisher Service's commitment to bring their authors' works to the widest audience with our highly motivated sales and distribution teams."

This Weekend on Book TV: The Tucson Festival of Books

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, March 1012 p.m. Day one of live coverage from the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books (Re-airs Saturday at 9 p.m.). Highlights include:

1 p.m. Open phones with Edward Luce, author of The Retreat of Western Liberalism (Grove Press, $16, 9780802128195).

1:30 p.m. Douglas Preston, author of The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story (Grand Central, $15.99, 9781455540013).

2:30 p.m. Open phones with Melissa Del Bosque, author of Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty (Ecco, $27.99, 9780062448484).

4 p.m. Open phones with David Cay Johnston, author of It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781501174162).

4:30 p.m. Scott Kelly, author of Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery (Knopf, $29.95, 9781524731595), followed by an open phone segment at 5:30 p.m.

7 p.m. Open phones with Max Boot, author of The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (Liveright, $35, 9780871409416).

Books & Authors

Awards: Windham-Campbell, B&N Discover Winners; Stella Shortlist

Winners were announced for the Windham-Campbell Prizes, which is administered by Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library "to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns." Each of the eight winners receives $165,000 and will be honored September 12-14 during an international literary festival at Yale. This year's Windham-Campbell Prize recipients are:

The winners of Barnes & Noble's 2017 Discover Awards for fiction and nonfiction, each of whom receives a cash prize of $30,000 and a year of marketing and merchandising support from B&N, are:

Fiction:Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell (McSweeney's), which the bookseller described as "a darkly comic debut novel about a young woman seeking an explanation for her adoptive brother's suicide."

Nonfiction:Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder (Norton), "a finely reported narrative that follows a new generation of itinerant workers."

Second-place winners, each of whom receives $15,000:

Fiction:The End We Start From by Megan Hunter (Grove/Atlantic), "a poetic parable of new motherhood."

Fiction:The Leavers by Lisa Ko (Algonquin Books), "a powerful story of parents and children and how the bond between them are tested."

Nonfiction:The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael Twitty (Amistad Books), "a remarkable culinary history that is also part memoir and part detective story."

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The shortlist for the 2018 Stella Prize, which honors Australian women's writing, is:

Movies:Love, Simon, based on the novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, opens March 16. Nick Robinson stars as a secretly gay teenager with a mysterious crush.

Journey's End, based on the novel by R.C. Sherriff, opens March 16. The film follows a group of British soldiers on the Western Front in 1918. A movie tie-in (Penguin Classics, $8.99, 9780241333853) is available.

IndieBound: Other Indie Favorites

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover: An Indies Introduce TitleOnly Killers and Thieves: A Novel by Paul Howarth (Harper, $26.99, 9780062690968). "An unforgettable first line propels this debut novel about two brothers on the Australian frontier who are drawn into a world of conflict and revenge that tests their beliefs and morals to the ultimate degree. The age-old conflict between settlers and indigenous people is played out on the southern continent much as it was in the American West and Russian East. As the brothers become deeply embroiled, they enter a savage and unforgiving landscape, both physically and culturally, and it becomes the ultimate test of their growth and humanity. This is a work that is as unrelenting as the world it describes and will long linger with the reader." --Bill Cusumano, Square Books, Oxford, Miss.

HardcoverRed Clocks: A Novel by Leni Zumas (Little, Brown, $26, 9780316434812). "I never understood what it meant for someone's writing to be 'lyrical' until I picked up Red Clocks. With beautiful prose, Leni Zumas tells the story of a young girl seeking an abortion in a world where abortion is illegal and dangerous; a woman on the quest to have children when in-vitro fertilization is illegal and folks aren't allowed to adopt without a partner; a woman in a dead-end marriage desperate to escape from her husband and children; and a woman considered a witch by most who provides homeopathic reproductive healthcare, including illegal abortions. Zumas beautifully weaves these stories together and gives each individual a strong and unique voice, while also maintaining suspended disbelief. These characters felt real and this world felt possible. I suspect this will be one of the best books published in 2018." --Hanna Foster, BookPeople, Austin, Tex.

PaperbackAmerican War: A Novel by Omar El Akkad (Vintage, $16.95, 9781101973134). "Omar El Akkad has delivered a stunning debut. He imagines a world in a not-too-distant future where Americans are at war with each other once again. The characters in this story are fully developed and individual, yet their histories--their stories--extend into the histories of all those displaced and affected by the forces of war. The title, American War, is a shape-shifter. At once, it means that America is again at war, but at times reflects the ways in which the true, actual wars that America has perpetrated on Earth have affected the lives of millions of people. This will be one of the most discussed books of the year, and I cannot wait to put it in the hands of all readers looking to be changed." --Matt Keliher, SubText Books, St. Paul, Minn.

For Ages 4 to 8Lola Dutch by Kenneth Wright, illustrated by Sarah Jane Wright (Bloomsbury, $17.99, 9781681195513). "I love that this book supports creativity and hands-on experience, and also learning--diving head-first into anything you're interested in! What a wonderful message for young learners. And the best part: the jacket flap unfolds to be a dollhouse. They really pulled out all the stops with this book. It's a classic in the making!" --Alison Nolen, Linden Tree Children's Books, Los Altos, Calif.

For Ages 9 to 12The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor (Katherine Tegen, $16.99, 9780062491435). "Mason Buttle is my new superhero. With one friend dead and another missing, poor Mason is the number-one suspect. Fighting against his learning disabilities, Mason finds a way to tell his story and help solve the crime. Themes of perseverance, true friendship, and self-worth are layered throughout this captivating story. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and hope it gets all the recognition it deserves!" --Nichole Cousins, White Birch Books, North Conway, N.H.

For Teen ReadersTruly Devious: A Mystery by Maureen Johnson (Katherine Tegen, $17.99, 9780062338051). "Johnson delivers on everything a great YA book needs: a bit of romance, some quirky teen characters at a quirky boarding school, and a delicious murder mystery that leaves the reader guessing at every turn. I couldn't put it down!" --Melissa Fox, Watermark Books, Wichita, Kan.

Book Review

Review: Tangerine

Christine Mangan's first novel, Tangerine, offers suspense and lingering questions in a drama centered on the post-college relationship between two young women recently relocated to Morocco.

Lucy Mason and Alice Shipley were roommates at Bennington College in Vermont. They came from quite different circumstances: Alice was a well-off British orphan, whose guardian Aunt Maude is serious but somewhat unfeeling in her role. Lucy was a scholarship student, also an orphan, and this similarity is part of what led the pair to bond. They were terribly close in college--until the accident.

In Tangerine's opening pages, Alice has moved to Tangier with her new husband, John. He loves the city, its cacophony of sights and smells, its colorful crowds, jazz clubs and ubiquitous hot mint tea. Alice is not so sure. She hasn't left their apartment in weeks, maybe months, when Lucy turns up on the stoop. By contrast, a local tells Lucy almost immediately upon her arrival: "You are a Tangierine now," pronounced like the fruit, and highlighting the rich, fragrant foreignness of the backdrop to this drama.

In alternating chapters, the reader encounters past and present through Lucy's and Alice's respective perspectives. An epilogue and prologue, with unnamed narrators, offer more mystery. John is a shifting but mostly unsympathetic character. The two women's accounts of past events differ only slightly, at first. But as the novel unfolds, it becomes complicated. Lucy's devotion is perhaps a bit too intense. Alice's agoraphobia is variously attributed to her parents' death, or to a more sinister cause. Eventually, their memories of their shared past diverge enough that the question can no longer be ignored. Is this gaslighting? Mental illness? Surreality? Are these the simple mistakes of memory or is there a more ominous force at work?

In an atmosphere of shimmering heat, multiple languages and layers of history and mythology, two young women are bound together--although the reader must wait to find out if it is by a trick of fate or someone's purposeful actions. While there is money at issue--Alice's trust fund--the real risks are more significant. As this expertly paced novel rushes toward its finale, the question of whose reality is to be trusted becomes a question of sanity, or even of life and death.

Tangerine is a novel of intrigue and shifting perspectives, starring two ultimately unreliable narrators. Its appeal lies in the lush, sensual setting; the metered release of information about the shadowy past; and especially in untangling the twisted mystery of the present. Suspense fans will be well satisfied. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: Former college roommates reunite in Morocco, with enigmatic tensions and references to a troubled past.